Ben Bova confirmed with Sci Fi Wire that he’ll be writing three more Grand Tour novels, and also that Precipice, the first book in his new Asteroid War series, and The Story of Light, a nonfiction book about light’s influence on religion and other parts of our lives, both are due out next month.

The whole cast plus producers Brian Henson and David Kemper are expected to appear this weekend at the second annual Farscape convention, which is being held at the Airport Hilton in Burbank, CA September 1-3 (that’s this weekend…). The event is being staged by Creation Entertainment…follow the link for more details.

I haven’t seen Highlander: Endgame yet (it hasn’t crossed my TiVo that I noticed), but given that it only grossed $13 million, does ANYONE think a 5th movie (entitled Highlander: The Source and set to star Adrian Paul as Duncan MacLeod) is a good idea? The only upbeat news is Russell Mulcahy, the director of the original, is supposed to direct. Then again, he also directed the comical Highlander II: The Quickening.

Ain’t It Cool News is reporting a rumor that there may be a crossover between Enterprise and Roswell (both UPN shows since the latter was claimed of WB waivers) – sort of. Seems Roswell character Max (Jason Evans) will audition to play an alien on Enterprise at the Paramount Pictures lot. Jonathan Frakes (Commander William Riker from ST:TNG) will play the director – he also will reported by directing this Roswell episode, and he is currently the executive producer. Take it with a grain of quadro-triticale though…

Update 8/30: Jonathan Frakes has confirmed this will happen on Zap2It…

I don’t think I ever mentioned that the DVD for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is due out on October 16th (probably because it was already on every blasted web site in existence), and Amazon lists the sales rank as #1. Maybe some of you haven’t pre-ordered it yet, but you can do so now over at Amazon.com and support us at the same time…

It’s been all over the place, but for the sake of completeness: Aaliyah, the R&B artist who was to appear next to Keanu Reaves in the Matrix sequels, died Saturday when the plan she was on returning from the Bahamas crashed. It is still under investigation…

A couple of tidbits from various sources about the upcoming Enterprise: Jolene Blalock, who will be playing the Vulcan T’Pol, nearly turned down the job – in fact, she passed on the script three times without even reading it. She’s glad she changed her mind…and several crew members will be joining. Jeffrey Combs, best known as the various Weyoun clones on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is joining as an unnamed Andorian, along with Steven Dennis, frequent bit actor on Star Trek: Voyager, will play another Andorian named Thalos. A third character, a nurse named Nancy Struthers, will be added as well, but no actress has been named.